Mr & Mrs Gray
by maxwell02
Summary: Syelle: AU: Gabriel and Elle have been happily married for 3 years. What happens when they each find out that the other is a super-powered agent working for the other side?
1. Chapter 1

_AN: This story is completely AU. _

_Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes or Mr. & Mrs. Smith._

_Hope you enjoy!_

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**Chapter 1**

Elle was having a lousy day. She had spent all afternoon chasing down what was supposed to be an easy bag and tag and nearly gotten her face burned off when he got in a lucky shot. She couldn't believe she had let a baboon like Flint Gordon almost get the best of her. As it was, he had singed her hair. Nobody touched her hair! She had made sure he suffered for that little mistake with a few well placed kicks to the kidneys before dumping him off at the Company.

Now, she was late for dinner. She could only hope that Gabriel was still busy at the shop.

She still found it amazing that he could get so wrapped up in watch repairs that he was often late from work. The first time she had asked him what was so interesting that he was two hours late for dinner, his eyes had lit up mischievously and she had gotten a long and involved explanation on the virtues of a Patek Philippe tourbillon wristwatch. She'd rather electrocute herself than sit through that again!

She sighed in relief as she pulled into the driveway and noticed that Gabriel's car was still missing. Running into the house, she was satisfied to see that her Company assistant had prepared another "home cooked meal" and set the table for her. She ran upstairs to change for dinner.

___

Gabriel pulled into the driveway and slammed his fist onto the steering wheel after parking. What a day! He had been on the verge of tracking down the elusive Agent Bishop when the incompetent goon his father had paired him with for the mission went missing and he had had to spend the last hour explaining to his father how Flint had been slowing him down and they were better off without him anyway. Arthur had given him that _look_ that asked if Flint was really missing or if he had just decided to scalp another partner.

Geez! He had only done that _one_ time!

Well, he was finally home now and he could relax. He just wanted to eat, take a shower (hopefully with Elle) and go to bed.

When Gabriel had informed Arthur three years ago that he was getting married and needed to severely limit the number of long and overnight assignments he took, he had expected a showdown that could require the construction of a new headquarters. Instead, Arthur had looked at him long and searchingly and declared that marriage would be good for him.

It had been.

If someone had told him four years ago that he'd be happily married and working a nine to five job recruiting (and sometimes dismantling) super-powered humans for Arthur Petrelli (his father!), he would have told them they were crazy. And then taken apart their brain to see what had made them that way.

Over the years, he had thought about telling Elle that he was not, in fact, a harmless watch repairman. But he always came back to the same conclusion. If his sweet, quirky, pastry chef wife ever knew who he was and what he really did, he would lose her. So if he had to lie, cheat, kill or steal to keep the one thing in his life that made him sane, he would gladly do it.

With a smile tugging on the corner of his lips, he straightened his sweater vest and pulled his glasses on. Time to see what was for dinner.

___

Elle was just putting the finishing touches on another perfect pot roast when she felt Gabriel slip his arms around her waist and gently kiss her temple.

"Hey, Mrs. Gray." She turned in his arms.

"Hey, yourself, Mr. Gray," she smirked up at him. He smiled back at her for a moment before frowning and moving his hands to cup her face and turn it to the side.

"Elle, what happened to you hair?"

She laughed lightly and kissed him on the nose before picking up the roast and walking to the dining room. "Oh, I was torching some crème brûlée and poof! It ignited a bit harder than I thought it would and got some of my hair." He sighed. She was so accident prone!

"Please be careful, Elle. You know how I worry." _Oh, if only he knew._

"Aww, Gabe! You do care!" She came back in and wrapped her arms around his neck, batting her lashes at him outrageously. "Now tell me you love me and you can have some dinner." She smiled at him expectantly and he promptly complied. She was always asking him to say it.

"I love you."

"How much?" Her fingers were slowly creeping under the back of his shirt.

"I would kill for you." _Please let me kill for you._

"Would you die for me?" She ghosted her lips along his jaw and he shivered.

"Yes." _No need to tell her he was practically indestructible._

"Good." She smiled seductively against his lips. "Take me to bed?"

"_Yes_."

As usual, they didn't end up eating until much, much later.

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_AN: Yes, I did steal a line from The Simpsons. Hearts and stars to anyone who knows which one!_


	2. Chapter 2

_AN: This story is completely AU. I just thought that Elle and Sylar would work really well in the universe of Mr. & Mrs. Smith._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes or Mr. & Mrs. Smith._

_Hope you enjoy!_

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**Chapter 2**

_Ah, freedom, at long last!_ Elle heaved an exaggerated sigh of relief as she slipped out of sight of her sometimes partner. Noah Bennet was actually pretty good as far as partners went. He was focused and competent so if you didn't mind working with someone who never cracked a smile unless he was putting a bullet into someone's face, he was your man. Having known him practically since birth, Elle was not put off by his stone like features and manner. But come on! Even she had her limits.

"Bishop, do not even _think_ about taking him down on your own," she heard his voice grind out through the tiny emitter in her ear. She rolled her eyes even though he wasn't around to see it and kept walking to her destination.

"We've been watching him for a week! This is the first time he's really given us a chance to nab him."

"Bishop…"

"Look, I'm not gonna do anything flashy. I'm pretty sure I can…persuade him to come out with me on his own. So be prepared to pick him up in the back in ten minutes."

"_Elle_."

"Unless you'd rather go in there instead?" she asked smugly. She could practically hear his mouth pinch into a sour, puckered lemon face. They both knew he'd stick out like a sore thumb in a club like The Absolute.

"…fine. Be out in ten minutes. Do not stay to party. Do not stay to dance. And do not even think about drinking!" God! It was like she was still sixteen or something.

"Don't worry, Bennet," she practically purred. "I won't - much." She turned off her emitter just in time to cut off his angry retort.

Showtime!

___

The club was loud, dirty and stank of smoke and the stale sweat of too many bodies in motion. Contrary to what she had told Bennet, Elle had no intention of staying to enjoy its dubious pleasures. Meat markets were no longer her thing and hadn't been for awhile. Still, she knew how to blend in. Had gotten in quite easily – just walked right up to the front of the line in her tight black leather jumpsuit and been motioned in appreciatively before she even reached the velvet rope. It was certainly nice to know she still had it! She spotted the target immediately.

He was tall, he was big, and he was _hairy_. Phil Brogan was a suspected shape shifter. It was up to them to acquire him and turn him over to the Company 'doctors' to find out exactly what shape he took.

Elle smiled to herself. _The bigger they are...the more fun they are to bag!_

She made her way through the crowded club to his side and 'accidentally' bumped him. He angrily turned to her but his snarl stopped as soon as he got a good look at her.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't spill your drink, did I?" she batted her lashes.

"You did, baby, but you can make it up to me." Gah! He was leering at her like she was a side of beef and he was the big bad wolf. She clinically noticed that he was what some women might consider attractive. Personally, she preferred incredibly intelligent mechanical experts with glasses.

He slung his arms around her possessively, his hands low on her back and she stiffened.

"Why don't we take this back to my place?" she tried to discretely edge out of his arms without making it look like she was not into him. God, he was sweating all over her and he smelled like wet dog!

"Nah, baby. I've got a better idea," he tightened his hold on her and she could see his eyes take on a yellow cast as he licked his lips. "Let's head upstairs. I've got a special room reserved."

She put on the most seductive smile she could manage through clenched teeth. "My place is right around the corner. I'm sure we'd be much more comfortable there and then we could take _all_ the time you want."

"Trust me, baby, I'm gonna take exactly what I want from your sweet ass. _Upstairs_." His grip was getting tighter and she started to feel the first prickle of unease. Her senses were telling her that he was stronger than his size and build could account for – _much_ stronger. Just as she was about to break his grip on her she noticed in alarm that his teeth were growing into long, jagged fangs. And then he was yanking her through the club and to a stairwell hidden in the back.

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"Damn, this club looks tight! This is my kind of assignment! You ready to do this, man?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes. What was Arthur up to, sending him out with a partner the last few assignments? It was well known at Pinehearst that he worked best alone. Ever since his first partner's demise years ago, no one had wanted to work with him in any case. The incident had been explained away by Arthur as an unfortunate accident but everyone knew what had really happened. Lydia Hurst had gone against Sylar's direct orders at a critical point in their mission and afterwards, he had scalped her without hesitation.

They were parked outside a club their target was known to frequent and Gabriel wanted to make sure a few things were understood before they got going. He ignored Knox' ridiculous comments. "Did you read the file like you were supposed to?"

"Sure, man. I know all I need to know about this guy."

"Well then you know that against him, your power is useless. He's a lycanthrope. He can change into a wolf – a big one – and a predator like that doesn't feel fear."

"Yeah, but once we get started, I'm sure they'll be some people around who _will_ be afraid. And I can power off of them as easy as if it was coming directly off him."

"Good. Then I guess you might not be completely useless to me after all. Just remember that when we get in there, you do what I say, when I say. And we all go home happy campers. Understand?"

"Yeah, sure man…" this guy was creepier than he'd heard.

"Outstanding."

Gabriel Gray opened the car door but it was Sylar who stepped out. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply at the intoxicating rush of adrenalin that always poured through him before a hunt and felt the first, faint stirrings of his need rise up in him. When he opened his eyes again he grinned at Knox from over the top of the car.

"Let the party begin."

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_AN: I know – that last line was so corny but I couldn't help it! ;)_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"My _underage daughter_ is in there. I suggest you let me in to find her or I am calling the police." A rather irritated looking man was blocking the entrance to the club when Sylar and Knox arrived.

"Is there a problem here?" Sylar inserted himself smoothly. Both the bouncer and the frustrated man turned to him.

"Unless you're on the list, you ain't getting in." The bouncer crossed his arms and glared at all three of them.

"Well, I recommend you make an exception for us. Raymond Weil, State Liquor Licensing and Compliance inspector. This is my partner Jon Crane. We've received several complaints that this club is in violation of underage drinking statutes and it looks like the allegations are true," Sylar lied glibly. "I'm going to need to see the manager of this club." The bouncer shifted uncomfortable under Sylar's glare.

"Fine. You can go in," he grumbled.

Sylar flicked his glance to the other man. "I suggest you find your daughter and leave as quickly as possible."

"I plan to." He nodded his thanks once and was soon out of sight in the crowded club. Sylar and Knox were quick to follow.

___

"He's not here, man."

"He is here. This is part of his routine. We're just not looking in the right place."

"So what do we do?"

Sylar thought for a minute. The club was quite large – three stories with different music rooms and private areas. They had been searching through the main dance floor and bar areas with no luck. "We check the security room." They headed off.

When they arrived, Sylar blasted off the lock and telekinetically threw the security guard across the room. He didn't get up. There were dozens of monitors showing different scenes inside the club and they scanned them looking for their target. Sylar found his eyes drawn immediately to one screen in particular.

"Is that him?" Knox asked, looking between Sylar and the screen he was staring at intently.

It was most definitely their shapeshifter – and there was someone with him. It was just Sylar's luck that this was the one surveillance camera that didn't seem to be functioning properly. There was screen static and the image would blank out at intervals. He could see that the target was struggling with a petite woman. She seemed…strangely familiar. He couldn't get a clear look at her face as she had her back turned to the camera but as he watched her, an odd sensation crept into his gut and made its way throughout his body, numbing him and shortening his breath. He gripped the panel he was leaning against unconsciously. _It can't be…there's just no way… _As he watched, the man on screen suddenly started warping. His skin seemed to peel and split in places and his body became longer and twisted. Knox was talking to him but he didn't bother to respond. He was already racing down the corridor, blasting open doors and people who weren't getting out of his way quickly enough.

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It occurred to Elle that this was the type of situation that most girls would find pretty terrifying. If Noah knew where she was at this moment, she would never hear the end of it. Letting yourself get cornered by a mark with unknown and potentially deadly abilities was a rookie mistake that she had never made even when she _was_ a rookie.

Luckily for Elle, she was not like most girls.

She had let Phil take her up to his reserved room in the club. It had been pretty apparent to her earlier that she would have to come with him or risk causing a scene. And beyond that, there was just no way she was going to let him get away without some damage after the way he had manhandled her. She had plans for him - plans that involved a lot of pain and burnt hair. To do that, she needed to get him alone.

She was pretty sure what type of shapeshifter he was now. She could handle him. The creep was a dead man walking. No mercy!

When they got to the private room he had, he casually slung her in and locked the door. He turned around to face her and grinned up at her through his brows. Elle watched as he slowly started to remove his jacket and tossed it on a chair. He looked her up and down and she could see him practically drooling. Wait a minute – he _was_ drooling. _Ewww_.

"God, you look good, girl. Fucking delicious," he drawled. "I haven't had such a fresh catch in a long time." Okay, now he was seriously starting to give her the heebie jeebies. She couldn't tell if he wanted to have sex with her or eat her. Maybe both. Her brain started supplying her with some deeply disturbing images that made her want to gag. She gave herself a mental slap. _Focus, Elle!_

He started taking off his shirt and unbuckling his belt, watching her the entire time. "Take off your clothes, Blondie," he ordered.

"Really, Phil, haven't you ever heard of foreplay?" He immediately stilled. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"I didn't tell you my name."

"No. I guess you didn't." Before he could move, she had him pinned to the wall with a crackling volt of electricity. Her power filled the room and out of the corner of her eye, she saw light bulbs igniting and the TV short circuit. Sparks fizzled and snapped in the air. She didn't let up until he had finished screaming himself raw and slumped into unconsciousness. She went to inspect him and rolled him over with a strong push from her boot.

"Was it good for you, too?" she smirked down at him.

Suddenly, his eyes snapped open. Elle stumbled back in shocked surprise. He lunged to his feet and whipped his huge hands around her neck, choking her and lifting her into the air.

"_Who are you??_" he roared, shaking her angrily. She grasped his hands at her neck and jolted him again until he released her and they both fell to a heap on opposite sides of the room. The smell of ozone and burning flesh filled the air. Elle gasped as her vision began to swim back into focus and air filled her lungs. She saw him stagger to his feet and come at her again. She struggled to her feet and lifted her hand to blast him but he dodged it with sinuous grace and then he was upon her again. This time, he clamped his hands around hers, closing her hands into fists. She tried to shock him and screamed in pain as the electricity crackled through them both. Her damaged throat felt like it was full of knives. He held on to her hands and Elle could feel her bones crunching together.

"I'm going to kill you, you little bitch!" She watched in dread as his body started shifting. She could feel claws extend out of his hands and pierce her wrists. He was getting bigger. Much bigger.

_Fuck._

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Sylar moved down the hallway at a dead run. He was using his telekinesis like a battering ram to push everything and everyone out of his way. His heartbeat was a roaring drum in his head. Even as he told himself that the woman he'd seen was not Elle, was only shockingly similar, in his mind's eye he kept replaying the horrific scene on the surveillance monitor. He pushed himself to go faster.

The security room was on the first floor and the private room he saw was on the third. As he turned another corner to head up the first set of stairs, the blaring music that had been pumping throughout the club cut out and was replaced by the blare of a fire alarm. He was soon drenched as the sprinklers came alive. Either someone had pulled the alarm or the building was on fire. And then, even with his powers he found himself struggling to make it deeper into the building. A river of panic stricken revelers trying to escape the threat of a burning building blocked him at every turn. He angrily threw people out of his way but there were too many of them and they kept coming.

Knox suddenly appeared by his side. If Sylar had bothered to glance at him, he would have seen that the veins on Knox's face and hands were swollen and throbbing and his eyes were wild and bloodshot. Together, the two of them cut a bloody path to their destination but it was still taking them too long to get there.

Sylar had done recon on Phil Groban. Had seen how he lived and studied him like an insect in a jar before entering his findings into the Pinehearst database. He had never actually seen him fully manifest but understood the extent of his ability and the animal instincts that would overcome him once he was in his alternate form. There was no doubt in Sylar's mind…when Phil did manifest, anyone with him would be slaughtered. The sick sensation radiating out of his chest was increasing and for the first time, Sylar acknowledged the real fear he felt. _Please, just don't let it be her._

When he finally saw the right door come into sight, he wrenched it off so hard it embedded itself into the wall across the hall.

Inside was a scene from a horror movie. The room was destroyed. Scorch marks covered every surface and the sprinklers left greasy water trails on smoldering furniture. The damaged lights flickered and fizzed out. His breathe caught at the sight of a large blood stain on the floor and he hurriedly followed a splatter trail to the broken window. He leaned as far out as he could and saw the mutilated body of Phil Groban horribly bent and twisted below. Sylar narrowed his eyes.

There was no one else in sight.

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_AN: Raymond Weil is a Swiss watch manufacturer. I forgot to mention that the Patek Phillippe reference in Chapter 1 is the actual name of a company that produces insanely complex and expensive timepieces. Jon Crane is of course a reference to Dr. Jonathan Crane. I liked the alias as they both he and Knox use fear to their advantage._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"I'm going to kill you, you little bitch!"

Elle was starting to regret turning off her communicator when she saw Phil start to shape shift. With his hands clamped down on hers, this was going to hurt like a _mother_.

"_ARGHHHH_!!!" They both yelled as she released her biggest jolt yet. All of her organs felt like they were about to explode but she noticed that her electricity seemed to hamper his ability to shift. She turned it up and felt his grip on her loosen and he let go completely when their clothes and the carpet around them caught fire. Shit!

She grabbed his discarded jacket to put herself out just as the fire alarm came on. The sprinklers immediately followed and she was soon drenched. She turned to face Phil again and saw that he was hurt but his eyes were burning with fury. With a roar, he thrust his arms out over his head, his hands forming into claws. The skin of his chest tore in two and with a sickening crack, his back twisted and grew. The tear ran down his stomach and up across his face and the new growth underneath showed dark and bloody. Elle paled. She had never seen a transformation like this before. Something wasn't right. And wet as she was, she knew she would only harm herself if she tried to shock him now. She had to get out of there. She ran for the door.

He reached her before she had even taken two steps.

She was thrown across the room and bounced off the window, leaving it cracked but not broken. She couldn't move her body and struggled to lift her head. He was coming for her again. She tried to jolt him and gasped aloud in pain as the water caused her power to feed back into her. He stood over her, body still rippling in the midst of his transformation, his blood dripping onto her. Cold dread washed over her like a rush of ice water. He was going to kill her and it would be brutal. She took a shallow breathe. At least her father would never let Gabriel know the truth about what had happened to her. Tears prickled her eyes. _Oh,_ _Gabriel.._. Phil's nearly fully formed lupine shape filled her vision.

A crash followed by three quick gunshots filled her ears. Phil howled and was thrown forward over her and into the window, narrowly missing her. She heard the ring of shattering glass and his agonized screams fading and then a meaty thump. She slumped in relief as her vision blurred and faded to white.

___

Noah sighed in relief to find that Elle was still breathing. She was unconscious and looked badly damaged but he had seen her worse. He holstered his gun, lifted her into his arms and raced out of the room. He needed to get her back to Primatech.

He ran out the door and looked both ways down the corridor before deciding to head away from the stairs – they would be swamped and he wanted to avoid detection. They would have to use the elevator. He moved as quickly as he could with Elle in his arms. Once he got there, it was shut down as expected. He looked at Elle, hoping she'd be coming around so she could power it up for them. She was white and unresponsive. Placing her on the floor, he tore off the access panel and gave it a jolt with his taser. He was surprised but relieved when he heard the elevator hum to life. Lifting her back up, they rode to the first floor and lost themselves in the crowd outside. He could hear the approaching sirens of the fire and police departments and hurried to the van they had parked in an alley in the back.

Placing Elle in the passenger seat, he reached to strap her in. A loud ringing interrupted him. He glanced in the cup holder to see Elle's cell phone flashing. He checked the display and frowned when he saw it was her husband. It seemed that she had already missed several calls from him. Whatever it was the man needed, it would have to wait. He finished strapping Elle in and drove out of the alley, making his way back to Primatech headquarters.

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She could hear voices murmuring indistinctly. Her head felt thick and heavy, like it was wrapped in cotton. The voices were distorted, like they were coming from far away or through water but they were becoming clearer. She heard her father and Noah Bennet and someone else. They were arguing.

"…can't keep her here! Her husband has been calling both her cell and the bakery number."

"Well, what do you suggest we do? We can't let him see her like this. How would we explain it to that _boy_?" her father sneered.

"Schaeffer can't put him off much longer."

"…not all of this blood is her's. I'm going to take some samples and run it down to the lab…"

"Just where…was happening? I thought I told you to keep an eye on this!"

"And…lot out, didn't you, Bob? I saw him. That was no ordinary shifter!"

"…that was for you to determine. Part of why we put you together!"

"Her hands are damaged…won't be able to –"

"Unacceptable. I need her on this."

"…could give her some of…"

"…do it…"

She was fading out again.

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Sylar slammed his phone shut again and resisted the urge to throw it against the building wall. He angrily looked down at the body at his feet. He glanced back up at Knox.

"Call Arthur and tell him we need a cleanup crew."

"What just happened?" Knox stared at him for a moment while he pulled out his cell.

Sylar turned to look back up at the window Phil Groban had apparently fallen – or was pushed – from.

"I don't know." _Yet._ He turned back around to reenter the building, leaving Knox to finish with their former target.

Once inside, he made his way past milling police and fire crew, back to the surveillance room. The body of the security man was gone. The sprinklers had gone off in here, too, covering all the electronics in water. Ever screen was dark. He tried turning on the equipment but it stayed silent and dead. Frustrated, he grabbed the security chair and threw it as hard as he could against the wall, feeling a bit better for the physical exertion. His cell phone rang and he flipped it open. Finally!

"Status report, Gabriel."

He suppressed a groan. Just what he needed tonight. He placed his fingertips on his forehead and thought carefully about what to tell Arthur.

"The target is dead. Possibly killed by an unknown party. We're sending him to the lab for evaluation."

"I see. I want to see you and Knox in my office when you get back."

"Yes, sir." He pursed his lips. No need to tell Arthur he wasn't planning on coming in right away. The line went dead but the cell flared to life again as he was putting it away. This time, he looked at the display. _Primavera Dessert Company._ Relief flooded through him.

"Elle –"

"Hi, Gabriel! No, it's Megan. Sorry we didn't pick up earlier. We were working on a HUGE order of soufflés for that wedding party that came in tonight – I'm sure you remember the one Elle told you about – the Pinkins with their gazillion guests! – and so of course cell phones are a no no in the kitchen! I can't have any noise when those are baking you know –" Gabriel interrupted her before she could get any further. He had no patience for Megan Schaeffer's chatty explanations tonight.

"Megan, I'm sorry, I need to speak with Elle. Is she there?"

"Oh no, honey, I sent her home. She should be on her way there now. Poor thing! She's been on her feet all –"

"Thank you, Megan." He hung up abruptly and walked out to the car, dialing Knox on the way.

"Knox, here."

"Make sure everything is swept. Then take a ride back with the cleanup crew. I need to check on something." He hung up before Knox could ask him any questions.

He needed to see Elle for himself. And he didn't need powers to know something wasn't adding up.


	5. Chapter 5

_AN: Happy Holidays everyone! Hope you enjoy this longer than usual chapter. _

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**Chapter 5**

Elle awoke with a shock – eyes wide, vision sharp and every sense alive. She felt good. Strangely good. She turned to see Dr. Hank French removing a syringe from her arm and had a moment of déjà vu. Then she remembered the club and Phil.

"Why aren't I in pain?"

He pulled out a small flashlight and shinned it in her eyes for a moment as she blinked in irritation. Nodding in satisfaction, he mumbled to her as he continued his examination. "I've injected you with a bit of Adam Monroe's blood. It seems to be working. You had some broken bones in both your hands, but they appear to be fine now." She seemed to remember a few more injuries than just broken fingers but lifted her hands to examine them anyway. Hmm, her hands did appear to be normal except for some broken nails. Elle fiddled with the nail of her left index finger and sighed. She'd just gotten them done yesterday!

"Flex them for me." With a roll of her eyes she did as she was told and gripped her hands into balls and then extended her fingers as far out as they would go. There was no pain and no scarring although she knew that there should have been. She looked up at Dr. French.

"Is the target dead?"

"Hmm, I don't know. They haven't brought him in yet for me," he murmured distractedly. "Shoot that glass over there." She zapped it with a flick of her fingers and watched it explode with a satisfying crack. He nodded and made some notes on his clipboard. "Everything normal? No change in the level of output?"

"My 'output' is fine."

"Then we're all done here. Mr. Bennet is waiting outside for you." She nodded in thanks, rubbing her wrists while the memory of Phil's claws tearing into them replayed in her mind.

"Why did you give me his blood?" she asked suddenly. She hadn't known for sure that Adam's blood had the ability to heal although she had heard rumors. She had never been given it before to speed her healing although she remembered having been hurt quite often when she was younger and healing slowly and painfully the old fashioned way. The doctor looked at her for a moment in that way that people at the company sometimes did – as if there was something she should know but didn't. She felt uneasy for a second, but only a second, before she forced herself to relax.

"Your father requested it."

She nodded and slid off the examination table and made her way out.

Noah was leaning against the wall next to the examination room and looked up when she came out. His eyes flicked over her, noting her whole, unblemished skin.

"Feeling better, are we?" he quipped sardonically. Gah, she could already hear the lecture starting.

She took a deep breath. "Look, Noah –"

He held up his hand to interrupt her. "You can tell me later. We have a problem, Elle. After I hauled you back here, we sent the cleanup team out to pick up Groban. He wasn't there."

"He survived?" Elle frowned in concern and leaned herself up on the wall opposite him. A wounded animal was always more dangerous.

"I don't think so. When they got there, the area had already been wiped clean. There was no trace of Phil – or you for that matter. The team spoke with some witnesses. There was a disturbance that night that I'm guessing had nothing to do with you."

"Ahh. Our mysterious competition?" she quirked her brow in interest.

"Seems like it. Did you see anything unusual tonight? "

She folded her arms and tapped her chin with one of her fingers. "No. But I _was_ a little preoccupied with not becoming the bride of Wolfenstein. Just a little."

"Cute," he said dryly.

"Thanks. I try," she said breezily, a smile lighting up her face.

He tossed something at her that she caught without thinking. It was her cell.

"Get cleaned up and go home. I'll debrief Bob." Elle looked at him in surprise. Noah smiled at her wryly. "That husband of yours has been calling all night – I suggest you check your messages before you leave. Bob expects you back in early tomorrow but you're free for the rest of the night."

"Cool."

"When am I going to meet this husband of yours anyway?" Noah asked casually as they began walking down the sterile white hall.

"I'll bring him by soon."

"You've been saying that for three years."

"True. When am I going to meet little Claire-bear?"

"…point taken." She grinned at him before turning to go down a different hallway.

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"What did Karina and Cruz find?"

Bob Bishop steepled his fingers, his elbows resting on the impressive desk in his office. He looked at Noah over the tops of his glasses and considered his question before answering.

"Almost everything was wiped clean. Very efficient," he noted with a certain clinical admiration. Bob was a man who enjoyed efficiency. "But there were quite a few injuries – more than the normal frenzied trampling can account for. From what they were able to piece together, it seems like there were two unknown advanced humans there tonight. They were there at around the same time you were but _they_ were able to get away with our target." Bob looked at Noah in clear displeasure. "I don't suppose you were able to see anything remotely useful tonight?"

Noah gritted his teeth and briefly thought about telling Bob he had been too busy saving his daughter from becoming 'the bride of Wolfenstein' before mentally going through all the faces he had seen that night. There hadn't been anything unusual besides his lucky break at the beginning of the night. He frowned when he recalled how he had gotten into the club so easily.

_(Flashback)_

_Noah Bennet would never admit it to anyone, but he was worried. Elle Bishop was late and now it was up to him to find out why. _

_Unlike most agents at the company, Noah knew Elle took her assignments very seriously. He never understood why but she often said and did things to deliberately mislead people into underestimating her intelligence or dismissing her. He had fallen for the same act when he first started working with her when she turned eighteen. Bob Bishop had asked him to take his young daughter under his wing for a few months and train her as an agent. She had annoyed him during their first assignment together with her perky quips and the constant stream of jokes at his expense. He had been resentful of the fact that he was expected to babysit her during an important assignment merely because she was the boss's daughter and she wanted to play at being an agent. Regardless of how 'gifted' she was, it had been apparent to him that she was unsuitable as an agent. The mission was a surprising success however and he attributed it to dumb luck on her part. It hadn't been. A string of successful operations soon followed. Although her methods sometimes made no sense to him, he had to admit that she had a gift for improvisation that went well with his by the book way of doing things. A few times though, that same gift had gotten her into trouble. _

_He hoped this wasn't one of those times._

_He had given up on her turning her communicator back on. He wasn't sure if it was because she was unable to. Just because he expected more out of her than most didn't mean she didn't enjoy turning his hair gray. _

_Noah checked to make sure the gun and taser he had were properly secured and hidden before checking out The Absolute. There were only two entrances and the side entrance was too exposed for him to force his way in. He gritted his teeth and walked to the crowded front entrance, frowning as he bypassed a line of scantily clad youths waiting to get in. Some of these people looked like they were Claire's age! He grimly marched up to a man holding a clipboard at the front entry._

_The man raked his eyes up and down Noah's form and quirked an eyebrow. "You on the list?" he asked dubiously. _

"_No, but this is an emergency. You need to let me in," he told him in a serious and urgent tone._

"_Like I've never heard that one before. Move it along old timer – you ain't getting in."_

_Noah narrowed his eyes on him._

"_My underage daughter is in there," he lied. "I suggest you let me in to find her or I am calling the police." He gave the man what Elle liked to call 'The Glare of Death.' _

_Just as the bouncer was about to retort, two men stepped up next to him._

"_Is there a problem here?" one of them inserted calmly. Noah looked at them. The one who had spoken was tall with dark hair and had an authoritative air to him. His companion stood behind him and had a bit of a mulish look on his face. They didn't appear to be bouncers. Their suits were certainly too nice for that. _

"_Unless you're on the list, you ain't getting in." The bouncer crossed his arms and glared at all three of them, daring them to try to get past him. The dark haired man was not fazed._

"_Well, I recommend you make an exception for us. Raymond Weil, State Liquor Licensing and Compliance inspector. This is my partner Jon Crane. We've received several complaints that this club is in violation of underage drinking statutes and it looks like the allegations are true. I'm going to need to see the manager of this club." Noah stayed silent. This was too good to be true. All three of them looked at the bouncer expectantly and he grudgingly waved them in. _

"_Fine. You can go in."_

"_I suggest you find your daughter and leave as quickly as possible," Raymond advised him._

"_I plan to." He nodded at them in gratitude and made his way inside the dark club. _

_Once safely inside, he turned on one of the special functions of his cell phone. The earring that Elle wore served as both a communicator and a locator. Even with it turned to silent, he should be able to find her. The large screen of his cell lit up with a miniature floor plan of the club and a tiny flashing dote indicated Elle's presence on the third floor. He swiftly made his way up._

_(End Flashback)_

"Well?" Bob prompted Noah slowly and sarcastically. "Did you notice anything we could use?" Noah snapped out of his recollection and flicked his eyes to Bob. He grinned a slow half smile.

"I have a lead."

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Elle was on the road and close to home before she remembered to check her cell. Flipping through the missed calls she frowned. Gabriel never usually left so many messages. She was about to dial her voicemail when she received a call from her father. She promptly snapped her cell open and held it up to her ear.

"Hi, Daddy."

"Agent Bennet told me you went in after the target yourself tonight." Elle sighed and rolled her eyes while expertly guiding her blue convertible along its dark route.

"Dad, it was no big deal –"

"Clearly, it was. You know better than to leave Bennet behind. I put him with you for a reason. Now, the target is gone and you were almost compromised." Elle tightened her hand on the steering wheel. She had almost been killed tonight. Was this all he had to say to her?

"Luckily, Bennet has a lead for us," he continued. "Can I assume you'll be fully prepared to help with the investigation tomorrow? I need you to be focused on this one, Elle."

Elle took a deep breath. "Of course, dad. I'm always –"

"Good. Eight sharp, tomorrow morning. And try not to be late." She heard a click and knew he was gone. She gritted her teeth and threw her cell back into the purse sitting on the seat next to her. Geez, this was the worst night!

A few minutes later her home came into sight. She sighed, thankful to be home as she pulled up to her classic white colonial style house. Parking in the driveway, she looked up for a moment at the beautiful residence in front of her. Gabriel had let her pick it out as a wedding present. She had known it was the perfect house for them the moment she laid eyes on it. It had been expensive and she had worried that he would think it was too much room for them, even though they could afford it. The day they had gone to see it, she had turned to him on the doorstep after their tour, her heart in her eyes, to tell him she loved it. But even though she had loved, in her heart she had already been prepared to let it go if he didn't think it was right for them. After all, she was used to not getting what she wanted. But he had only looked down at her, his smile as bright as her own and told her _'it's yours.' _If she hadn't already loved him, that would have certainly cinched it. She had very much shown him her appreciation later that day.

It scared her sometimes to think about how much she loved him, how she would do anything to keep him. And it was a good thing he never asked her too much about her past. She hated lying to him.

Gabriel was an orphan and had a modest income but he had told her that his parents had left him well off when they died. She had told him almost the exact same story about having no parents (it was half true after all) and being well off because of it, knowing it was best that he stay as far away from Primatech and her father as possible and not wanting him to ask how a pastry chef could live so comfortably. She had somewhat expensive tastes.

Her father hadn't cared when she began dating Gabriel. Even when she had come to him nervous and full of fragile happiness one day to anxiously tell him Gabriel had proposed, he had never asked to meet him. He had only told her grimly that if she wanted to play house with some _boy_ for awhile, he wasn't going to stop her but she should know that he was only going to break her heart in the end. Boys were unreliable. They lied and really, he had said, wasn't she lying to him as well? No one would ever be able to know the real her (like her daddy knew her). So, if she wanted to waste her time on something so transient, it was up to her. She had felt ill the entire time he spoke to her in his office. He had never once looked up from his desk during his speech and she had been shaking as she quietly left his office that day. But she had been determined. Gabriel had said he loved her and she wanted to believe him. She had known that she would never be able to tell him certain things about herself but that was alright, wasn't it? She was allowed to have some happiness, wasn't she?

Elle popped the car door open and made her way up the long steps to the front door, slamming it once she was in and throwing herself onto the thickly cushioned couch in the living room. She squirmed until the pillows were arranged just right and moaned in ergonomic bliss. Home at last! She was exhausted. She closed her eyes for a minute and ended up falling asleep.

She awoke to a gentle hand stroking her face and grabbed it in reflex. Blinking to clear her vision, she saw Gabriel kneeling close beside her, his intense gaze drinking in her features.

"Gabriel…I'm sorry I was late. Megan explained to you, didn't she?"

He nodded and laid his head on her stomach, his gaze never wavering from her face. The hand that she still held gently intertwined their fingers. She smoothed his hair way from his face with her free hand.

"Gabe, what's wrong?"

He was silent for a moment. "I thought you were hurt tonight."

Elle's breath froze in her chest and she forced herself to relax, hoping he hadn't felt any of her muscles stiffen. "Why would you think that?"

"I…just had a feeling." They looked at each other as Elle waited for her heartbeat to slow down. "Elle, I don't know what I'd do if anything ever happened to you."

She closed her eyes so he wouldn't see the guilt in them. She hadn't been thinking of him when she rushed into danger tonight. What if Bennet hadn't come after her? Her heart twisted in her chest.

"I love you, Gabe," she whispered.

"I love you, Elle."

"How much?"

"I'd do anything for you."

Elle opened her eyes and pulled him up for a kiss. It was full of love but also of a quiet but desperate relief neither of them was willing to voice.

Later that night in bed, with her head resting on Gabriel's chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart as he slept, Elle came to a decision. It was something that she had been thinking about doing for awhile now.

After this last investigation that her father seemed to think needed her special brand of skills, she was leaving the company for good. As long as she had Gabriel, she could be happy.

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_AN: I wanted to delve a bit deeper into some of their histories this chapter. Hope you liked it. More action and suspicions arising next time!  
_


	6. Chapter 6

AN: Sorry for the long wait! Hope you enjoy this chapter and thanks to everyone who prodded me along!

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**Chapter 6**

"So, we're investigating the two guys you met at the club last night?"

"Raymond Weil and Jon Crane," Noah replied. "I've already checked the state board database and neither of those names came up as registered liquor licensing inspectors. I should have realized that last night. There was something about them that was a little…too smooth."

Elle looked up at Noah. They were walking out of the large Primatech complex towards his company issued car on their way to inspect The Absolute. The meeting with her father had been short and to the point. They were to use the lead they had to track down the agents of Company X and uncover information on the company, using whatever means necessary.

"Company X," as they had taken to calling their mysterious competitor, had made itself known over the years through run-ins between agents. All of the incidents had involved high priority targets or targets who were known to possess Level 5 abilities. Until last night, all of Primatech's agents who had managed to emerge from these skirmishes alive came out with very little useful information and in the last few years, those that were killed had been scalped, their brains removed. They knew of course that this meant Sylar, the elusive serial killer who had given them so much trouble four years ago before dropping off the grid, had become an agent of their enemy organization.

Last night marked the first time that Primatech had solid information on their enemies. Noah had seen their two agents closely and there was a good chance that one of them had been Sylar.

"Wait, those are the aliases they gave?"

"Yes, do you recognize them?" Noah looked at Elle sharply. She rolled her eyes at him.

"Haven't you ever read Batman? Or at least seen _Batman Begins_?" At his blank stare, Elle elaborated. "You know, that movie with Christian Bale and Cillian Murphy? Mmmhh, those guys are so hot – especially Cillian."

Noah looked at her witheringly. "I hope there's a point to this."

"One of the villains in the movie is Jonathan Crane. He's known as the Scarecrow. He uses drugs to induce fear in people."

"Don't you get enough excitement out of fighting real life villains without having to read about them in comics?"

"You know, you could learn a lot from comics if you gave them a chance. You might even start to like them," Elle said teasingly.

He turned his disdainful eyes on her. "_Highly unlikely_."

Elle shrugged. "Anyhoo, I doubt it's a random alias. It might be a clue into his ability. Maybe he induces fear in people? You said that there was crazy stampeding going on last night. Sounds like some unnatural fear to me."

Noah didn't think running from a burning building was a sign of "unnaturally" fearful behavior but decided to let it go. That aside, it was still a valid theory.

"And what about the other name? Does that come from Batman, too?"

"That one…that one sounds familiar but I can't remember where I've heard it. I'll look it up later when we get back," she said, climbing into the passenger seat of his car. They buckled up and Elle stared out the window thoughtfully as the buildings and streets flew past.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Care to explain why I had to hear about yesterday's outing from Knox, last night?"

From his seat in the large armchair in front of Arthur's desk, Gabriel watched his father carefully from under lowered lids as Arthur stared out through the large floor length windows behind his desk, his back to Gabriel. Gabriel's legs were casually stretched out in front of him as he picked some non-existent lint from his carefully pressed black slacks, every inch of him exuding a nonchalance that he wore like a cloak to conceal the tension he felt at Arthur's question.

He gave a bored shrug. "With the target acquired, there was nothing pressing to report on. And it was late. You know I don't like to work late shifts." From his seated position, he could see the reflection of Arthur's face in the glass. He met Arthur's reflected gaze openly, carefully blanking his mind to anything except his recollection of the cleanup reports he had read that morning. For some reason he couldn't explain, he didn't want to tell Arthur about the petite blonde woman he had seen last night. He knew of course that it hadn't been Elle but all the same, it felt best to keep that detail to himself.

"Yes. Of course. You have a beautiful wife to get home to," Arthur nodded understandingly. "I remember what that's like." Gabriel ignored the subtle allusion to his mother. He knew better than to take Arthur's bait and ask about her.

"How is she by the way?" Arthur continued when Gabriel remained silent. "How _is_ that beautiful wife of yours?" Gabriel held his body still, resisting the urge to shift in his seat as he thought of a suitably pleasant yet vague answer.

"She's good. Working more than ever but with the assignments that I've been getting lately, that's a good thing."

"I know we've been giving you a lot more to deal with in the last few months but I need you right now, son." Arthur turned to face him, his lined face serious as ever. "Things are coming to a head with the Company. We've been running into them much more frequently in the last year and I have a…_feeling_ that a direct confrontation is unavoidable."

Ah, so that was it.

"Dad, you know I'll do everything I can to help you. I've never failed a mission yet."

"I know you will, Gabriel. You've always been loyal. I just wanted to make sure…that things are going well for you. I can't have you distracted right now."

"Of course. I'll do whatever you need me to."

"I know you will, Gabriel." Arthur smiled and nodded at him before turning to look out the window again. Gabriel took that as his cue to leave and smoothly straightened up from his seat at the table.

He had crossed the room and had the door halfway open before Arthur spoke again.

"Oh, one last thing, Gabriel. Knox told me that there was a young lady with Phil last night." Gabriel stiffened. "The word from the cleanup crew was that she short circuited all the equipment in the room with an electrical outburst. Unless there's another Special with electrokinesis we've failed to document, it would seem that you almost had a run in with that agent you've been chasing. What was the name again?" At Arthur's words, a wave of unease crept through him. He turned his head slightly to answer.

"Agent Bishop."

"That's right…Bishop. Who would have guessed that Bishop was a woman? It's too bad you and Knox weren't able to see her face. In any case," Arthur continued in a dismissive tone. "I'm sure you'll track her down eventually."

Gabriel's hand tightened on the doorknob before he gave a curt nod, exiting and closing the door behind him firmly.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Look at this, Bennet," Elle called over her shoulder. Noah came to stand behind her as she carefully scanned the twisted metal doorknob with her Kelvin probe for fingerprints. The metal of the knob was deeply indented with the shape of a large hand.

"Enhanced strength. Good work, Elle."

Her face brightened. "Thanks."

They had started their inspection in the alley where Phil had landed in and moved on to the room he had taken her to. From there, they traced a surprisingly easy to follow path of destruction all the way down to the first floor. There were mangled doors and dented and gouged walls that appeared to be the work of telekinesis, lending support to Bennet's belief that Sylar had been in attendance the night before. This was their first indication of the presence of another ability being used.

"This is our second guy. Sylar wouldn't use super strength like this even if he had it when his telekinesis is his best option. That means Jon Crane has enhanced strength."

"How do you know that Jon Crane has super strength and not the other guy?"

"Sylar wouldn't take a backseat to anyone. He was in charge last night. Crane was his subordinate."

"So I guess we can dump the alias theory."

"Not necessarily. It still might be a clue into his power or something else about him."

"So are we done here, then?"

Elle turned around to face him when he didn't respond. The look on his face was serious as always but underneath, Elle saw the uneasy hesitation.

"What's wrong?"

"I checked the security room while you were in here. There's nothing useful salvageable but, our guys were there last night. We need to assume that they've seen you." Elle sucked in a breath. "We need to go back now, Elle. You find out what you can about Raymond Weil. I'm going to visit someone in the city who can make a sketch of these guys for us."

"You're going to see Isaac?"

"Yes." Her face brightened. "And no, you can't come. I don't need you riffling through his things like you did last time."

Elle's lower lip popped out in a pout. "Meanie."

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Of all the times for this to happen, why now?

Sylar angrily shot an ice blast at the fleeing form of test subject No. 11, freezing him the middle of his sprint. His previous momentum didn't slow and his frozen form promptly tumbled down, shattering against the floor. Sylar turned to look at the hallway behind him. There was pandemonium. Pinehearst employees were running everywhere amidst flickering lights and there was paperwork and debris littering the normally clinically clean seventh floor.

Mohinder's test subjects on the tenth floor had escaped.

One of them had managed to inject Mohinder with one of his own syringes and then promptly freed the others. They were crawling all over the building now in an attempt to leave. Most of Pinehearst's Specials were out on assignment so it was up to Sylar and a handful of others to reign them all in. Some of the escapees had powers ranging from negligible to extremely dangerous but the experiments had yet to yield a single result that didn't include negative side effects. Now, he was stuck hunting down thirteen subjects in different stages of mutation before they reached the parts of the building that weren't used by Specials. Or worse, before they managed to make it onto the street.

Normally, Sylar enjoyed a good game of cat and mouse but he was busy at the moment. And these mice were useless to him. He couldn't even take their powers. After all, who wanted to mess with damaged, mutant DNA? He sighed and turned down another corridor, away from the specially controlled file room he had been in, file folders tightly clutched in hand. He had been in the middle of reaserch. Arthur's words had unsettled him more than he cared to admit and he had gone down to look for information on Agent Bishop again as well as his own personnel file, going over the content that he knew would include the background check that Elle had been subjected to before their marriage.

He grabbed the arm of an agent who was running by, startling the man. Even at Pinehearst amongst other Specials, he was regarded warily.

"I want the stairway blocked off. Make sure no one gets by."

"Yes, sir." The agent nodded, radioing in more help as he hurried away.

Sylar had already shut the elevators down. With no easy exits available, it was a matter of simply flushing them out. He had already killed five of them and had another telekinetically pinned when he got a call from Mohinder. He flipped open his cell with one hand while keeping the struggling subject in place with the other.

"Sylar," Mohinder angrily ground out without preamble, "you need to stop killing my subjects! Some of them could still prove to be useful to my research. I need you to return them to the lab. _Alive_."

"Are you sure you'll be able to keep them under control, _doctor_? I'd hate for them to kill you on the way out next time," Sylar drawled, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

"_Just do it_."

Sylar bristled at the command in his voice. As if he took orders from Mohinder! The man was useless. He'd been working on experiments for his father since before Sylar got to Pinehearst and as far as he'd heard, had yet to head a single successful project. And even Sylar, removed as he was from the regular rumor mill (apart from being a regular subject of them), had heard that the only reason Mohinder was at Pinehearst was because of some diabolical piece of blackmail that Arthur was holding over him.

Sylar eyed the panicked test subject with a sneer on his face. With a jerk of his arm, he threw the screaming man across the elegant office space, breaking his body on the opposite wall. He crumbled to the floor, barely alive. He could hear Mohinder angrily asking him what the hell was going on. He smirked and turned to leave.

"Oh, no," Sylar answered in a voice full of feigned regret. "My fingers slipped. But don't worry, Mo. If you send down one of your techies to Harrison's office quick enough, you might be able to salvage this one." He turned off the phone amidst Mohinder's screams of outrage.

He clicked the phone back on and dialed Specialist Roberts. Roberts answered with a sharp yes.

"How many test subjects are left?"

"We've found five others. But there's a problem, sir."

"What now?"

"One of them slipped past the agents on the forth landing…we think he made it outside."

Sylar suppressed a groan, turning his steps towards the stairs. "Find the last subject. I'll take care of the escapee."

"Yes, sir."

"Which one was it?"

"…it was No. 13, sir."

Sylar clenched his teeth, his mind racing. Of all the subjects for them to lose!

"I'm sorry, sir. We think we may know where he would head –"

"I already know where he's going."

Now he just needed to get there before he did.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_AN: A scanning Kelvin probe (SKP) is used to pick up fingerprints without having to touch them, leaving the fingerprint residue intact to use for other testing. It can produce a high resolution image of the print. It's new technology that isn't used yet but I figured that The Company would have the latest and greatest._


	7. Chapter 7

_AN: Thanks to jeck for the always entertaining comments._ :)

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**Chapter 7**

Of course. That was why the name was so familiar. Elle could have smacked herself for not remembering it earlier.

She had given him a Raymond Weil watch on their first anniversary. Gabriel had been amazed when he saw it. Apparently, he had never heard of them ever having produced a solid gold watch before. When he had opened it carefully, even the tiny mechanisms had been wrought in gold. He had asked her in wonder that day how she had managed to convince the notoriously difficult company to produce such an item. Elle had simply smiled.

She frowned at the computer screen in their home office, now. She had decided to work from home for once. Gabriel was not in of course and ever since deciding that she would quit The Company as soon as this assignment was over, she had found herself wanting to be away from Primatech. Now, as she flipped through the manufacturer information on Raymond Weil, she had to wonder – why did Sylar always choose watch brands as aliases?

Elle glanced down when her cell phone gave off a soft beep, indicating a new voice message. She had missed Noah's call while grabbing a coke from the kitchen. She flipped it open.

"_I'm emailing you a copy of the sketches Isaac put together. Stay alert."_

Elle was just about to close it again when another message came on. It was Gabriel's message that she had forgotten about when she came home the night before.

"_Elle, I need you to call me **as **__**soon as you get this message**__. It's urgent, Elle. I - please just call me."_ Elle frowned. He sounded horribly strained and anxious. She remembered his words from the night before. He had thought she had been hurt. At the time, he hadn't told her why. Now, listening to his tense message, she could hear the faint sounds of a fire alarm amidst what sounded like far way screaming and shouts in the background. She quickly replayed the message. It sounded like…

Elle stumbled away from the desk, dropping the phone from a shaking hand. She felt ill and forced down a wave of nausea. There was no way. The very idea was ridiculous – Gabriel could not have been at the club that night. She kept on repeating this to herself even as she rushed upstairs to fling open the polished wooden box that sat atop Gabriel's dresser. Inside gleamed all the special timepieces he had been collecting throughout the years. Elle fumblingly examined each one with trembling hands. The Raymond Weil lay in the special case to the right and there were eight more beside it, all carefully laid out. None of them bore the Sylar brand. Elle closed her eyes and gave a strained laugh in relief. Of course. What had she been thinking?

But still…where had Gabriel been last night?

At the sound of the front door slamming shut, Elle straightened up and quickly put the contents of Gabriel's box in order, making sure it was shut tight. It sounded like he was home early.

Crap!

She had left the computer on. It didn't have anything incriminating on it aside from the page that was opened to the Raymond Weil homepage but even so…Elle felt an overwhelming urge to close it. Erasing the momentary panic from her face and plastering on a smile, she hopped down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Her smile was wiped away the instant she breezed into the living room.

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Sylar seethed in silent rage as he sped through the city, breaking traffic laws without a thought. As the image of No. 13's furious face came to mind, he regretted for the first time in a very long time that he had given up a life of random violence for that of structured, corporate approved violence. If he had just finished No. 13 off instead of taking him back to Pinehearst for testing as his father had insisted, he wouldn't have this problem now.

Now, the only person to ever survive his special brand of brain surgery was on the loose and Sylar knew for a fact where he was headed and what he wanted – revenge.

He had only seen him once since bringing him in to Pinehearst. It was before they had begun injecting him, when they had only been testing the limits of his powers. Killing him and bringing him back to life again and again for more tests, more pain and more abuse. The testing he had gone through at Sylar's hands had been the last thing they had tried before starting him on Mohinder's drugs.

That day, as Sylar subjected him to every one of the deadly powers he possessed, he had taunted Sylar with threats sprinkled in amidst cutting remarks and screams of rage and pain. Some of his comments had hit closer to home than Sylar cared to admit but the one thing that had enraged him was hearing the sly comment about what a pretty little wife he had heard Sylar had. The rage that he had displayed at that comment had brought a knowing smile to his adversary's face. He'd cooled himself immediately but it was too late - he'd given himself away.

Afterwards, when Sylar found out which one of Mohinder's lab techs had been gossiping around the test subjects, the good doctor had been forced to scrape his associate's remains off of four walls. The stench had lingered for weeks.

Sylar had a sick feeling now that his former assignment was going to do everything in his power to make good on his threats. After all, Sylar was responsible for everything that had happened to him within the last six months. And although Sylar himself was indestructible, that didn't mean that he couldn't be hurt. He had a weakness and the bastard knew what, or rather who, it was. And a quick call to the tech department before Sylar left had confirmed that someone had indeed stolen a Specialist computer access card and interfaced the restricted employee database.

Gabriel Gray's personal files had been compromised.

And with the knowledge, experience and now unknown abilities that their lab rat possessed, he couldn't help but feel sick with worry.

Pulling the car so fast into his driveway that it swung around and partially embedded itself into the garage, Gabriel vowed that if Elle was in any way harmed, Adam Monroe would spend the rest of his considerably long life begging for death.

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	8. Chapter 8

_AN: Sorry for the long wait between posts! In honor of Heroes coming back online, I was inspired to write again. Thanks to everyone for their encouragement while I went through a bit of writer's block. Hope you enjoy this chapter._

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**Chapter 8**

As soon as she hit the bottom of the stairs, Elle noticed a blond head facing away from her in the living room that was definitely _not _Gabriel's. She immediately clawed her hand, discreetly charging up energy for an attack in case one was needed. At the sound of her shoes hitting the polished wood flooring, the blond intruder swiveled around to face her, belligerently pulling up his hand level with her head. Elle gasped at the first glimpse of his face.

"_YOU_!" They both uttered in unison, Elle with a bit more growl to her voice. Adam dropped his hand at seeing her, his surprise obvious.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she hissed at him. "I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again!" She gave him a jolt straight to his chest to drive home the sentiment. He grunted and winced a bit, rubbing the spot gingerly with one hand while the other came up to gesture to her placatingly. His tone was soothing and slightly guarded as he spoke to her.

"Sweetheart, I assure you, any other time and I'd be more than happy to oblige you but it seems like we're both after the same thing here."

"Don't you 'sweetheart' me, you asshole," Elle growled menacingly. Her hands were still clawed, itching to throw another bolt at him. "You left the company years ago and you never looked back. I don't see how we could both be after the same -"

"Look, you're obviously after Sylar but I'm afraid you're a bit too late. I've got a bigger bone to pick with him so I get dibs. But as a favor," he smiled cunningly at her, seemingly regaining his equilibrium, "I'd be happy to let you have him - right after I'm done with him."

Elle's eyes narrowed. "How did you know that I've been assigned to the Sylar case?"

Adam rolled his eyes. "Darling –"

"Do not call me that!"

"— it's obvious. Why else would you be..." Adam's voice trailed away as his eyes caught sight of a picture located on the fireplace mantelpiece. He quickly crossed over to get a better look at it, lifting it into his hands to stare down blankly at the smiling faces contained within. She watched uneasily as a riot of emotions swam across his face. Finally, he seemed to collect himself and lifted his eyes, stonily holding the picture up so she could see it.

"You got married." He thrust the beautifully framed picture of Elle and Gabriel on their wedding day in her direction. Elle took a deep breath, feeling strangely guilty although she knew she had no reason to be.

"Yes."

"To _him_." His eyes were hard and Elle bristled at the comment.

"What? Did you think I'd be waiting around for _you_? Don't kid yourself. And where the hell have you been anyway?" she asked, really looking at his battered form for the first time. "You look like shit."

He frowned as he looked at her searchingly for a long moment before seemingly coming to a decision. Turning away, he slowly set the picture back in its place, bringing his body to rest against her mantelpiece. He shook his head slowly and Elle watched with narrowed eyes as he laughed a bit as if in disbelief. Still facing away from her, he closed his eyes as he smirked self-deprecatingly to himself. "Oh Elle," he muttered. "My poor, blind darling. If it had been anyone else I would have...*sigh* Why do you always have to make everything so difficult?" With that last cryptic comment, Elle felt her tenuous patience break.

"Adam – I don't know what the hell you think you're doing here but I've had just about enough of your weird shit. You need to take your shabby ass and get the hell out of here before I forget about the no harm clause in your severance contract and fry you three ways from Sunday."

"Don't worry dear, I'm leaving –"

"Good. Let's NOT do this again in another four years."

"— and you're coming with me."

There was dead silence for a moment before Elle brought both her hands up and zapped Adam with all her might, yelling profanities at him. Or, at least – she tried to zap him.

As soon as Elle's hands came up, so did Adam's. A clear blue shell formed around him, deflecting her jagged bolts of electricity harmlessly to the side and Elle gasped in surprise, watching as her energy winged over the couch and short circuited a large flat screen TV. They both watched it explode with a loud crack and then go up in flames.

"I just bought that," she whispered before turning back to him, her hands still raised. "How the hell did you do that?"

Adam looked at her coldly, the beginnings of impatience on his face. "I can do a lot of things now, Elle. But I'm afraid we don't have time for explanations. We need to go to Primatech and speak with your father."

"I'm not going anywhere with you." Elle slowly backed away, crackling blue hands still held up defensively. He rolled his eyes at her.

"You always were too pigheaded for your own good." And then, he crouched low and sprang at her, his movements quick and erratic, like a marionette without its strings. Elle watched him come at her in sick fascination – what the hell had happened to him?

Coming to her senses, she directed quick bursts of electricity from her hands while stumbling back. Most of her shots flew off into the house, torching the furniture and igniting the rug but she managed to wing him with one of her bolts. It barely seemed to slow him before he was knocking the burning couch out of the way and coming at her again. Instinctively, Elle filled the entire room with a miasma of cracking, burning blue energy only to see Adam form another tinted shell of deflective energy around him. She grit her teeth in annoyance.

Why did this crap always have to happen to her?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"_Bob, I've emailed you sketches of the specials we're investigating._"

"Good. I'll circulate them to the other agents today. Did you find anything useful?" Bob asked, referring to Noah's trip to the club. He shifted his phone as he reached over his desk to his computer to access his email account. It pulled up quickly and Bob clicked on Noah's file.

"_One of them has enhanced strength," _Noah replied._ "We picked up some prints, too. We'll need to run those through the database to see if we can find any matches. Not too much else. Has any other activity been detected recently?_" There was a moment of silence. "_Bob? Are you still there?_" After another long moment, Bob's voice came back over the phone.

"...is Elle with you?" he asked calmly.

"_...no. We split up. She went back to do some research._"

"She never came back here. Bennet...this man that you saw - Sylar - how accurate is this picture of him?"

"_I would say it's dead accurate._"

Bob Bishop clenched his free hand atop his desk. His unwavering gaze locked on the picture of Sylar, the super human serial killer, the man he had been tracking for over four years.

The man who had married his daughter.

There was no mistake. He could never forget that face - the face of the man who had been pulling Elle away from him for the last three years, slithering his way into her heart and mind insidiously like a worm in a new apple. Elle had never known but he had secretly been there that day she had wed _him _in a civil ceremony at city hall in her soft white dress and veil, the only other witnesses the judge and city officials. He had been so angry that day. He could no longer ignore _him _- had had to see the face of the man she had chosen to squander her life on. When he saw how happy they were that day, he had known that someday she would throw away all the time and effort he had put into training her. That someday, the important work they were doing would no longer appeal to her. What a perfect waste that would have been.

It had taken all of his careful manipulation to keep her at the company this long.

But now...well, now...it seemed like his luck was finally changing.

"Bennet, you need to go pick Elle up _now_. Take the Haitian with you. Do whatever you have to do to make sure she comes with you. "

"_What do you mean, 'whatever I need to do?'_" Noah asked suspiciously.

"She's an asset to us on this case and she's in danger. Sylar knows who she is." With that, Bob hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair, resting his hands together with the fingertips forming a pyramid that he tapped against his lips. He smiled. It was time to bring Elle back into the fold.

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_AN: Sorry there is no Sylar in this chapter. We'll see what he's up to next time!  
_


	9. Chapter 9

_AN: Hope you guys enjoy this chapter. It was a long time in the making. And thanks to everyone who has encouraged me to keep writing.  
_

_Thanks for reading! _

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**Chapter 9**

"Elle, would you _please stop fighting me_!" Adam yelled in anger, chasing Elle as she ran through the dining room on her way to the back door and dodging the bolts of electricity she was throwing behind her to slow him down. "_I am doing this for your own good, you stupid, ungrateful girl!_" At this, Elle turned, deftly flipping a dining chair into Adam's path and followed up with a high voltage blast to his face as he was busy blocking the chair with his arm. She grinned in satisfaction as his face and hair blackened and he choked on a scream. Taking quick advantage of his momentary lapse, she dashed through the kitchen and then out the back door as he sagged in agony against the table and then slid to the floor, clutching his rapidly healing face.

Adam groaned as tears leaked out of his eyes involuntarily. The pain was worse than he remembered from the last time she had "accidentally" zapped him in the face five years ago after a particularly nasty fight between them. As he slowly brought himself back up, he almost decided to just let her go - a_lmost_ - she could be more trouble than she was worth, after all. But then, he thought of the crazed look on Sylar's face when he had spoken so slyly about his wife and Adam's eyes narrowed viciously in grim determination. Even if he no longer wanted to kill her now that he knew who she really was, Elle was still the key to exacting his revenge on Sylar. And after he subdued her, he knew just what the best method would be to get what he wanted.

Now, he just had to make sure he could catch her before Sylar got there. And Sylar would be coming – there was no doubt about that. Adam would just have to make sure that when he did, it would be too late. With renewed determination, Adam hoisted himself up and through the door, using a projected version of his energy shield to knock it clean off its hinges.

Whether she liked it or not, Elle was coming with him.

______

Slamming the kitchen back door closed and then welding the lock shut, Elle turned quickly and ran down the left side path that led from the garden in the back to the gate on the north side of their home, flying over the stone steps. A locked door wouldn't hold him for long. She deliberately set fire to the plants lining the path to slow Adam down and lead him into following the fire after her. Geez! Why was he showing up now of all times? No doubt, whatever it was, he was up to no good. Throwing Sylar's name out had probably been a ploy of his to garner her cooperation. And telling her that they needed to get to Primatech could have just as easily been a way to get her to come with him quietly. He was sneaky like that. But he had lied to her too many times in the past for him to be able to expect her to blindly listen to him now. The fact remained that he was no longer working for the company. He had been a free agent now for five years and that meant that he couldn't be trusted.

Halfway down the trail, she set fire to the trees on the path before her and then veered to the side, hoisting herself easily up over the fence that separated her home from the neighbor's backyard, even in a hip hugging skirt and heels. Immediately the sounds of Adam breaking through the backdoor came to her as she crouched low in a conveniently positioned clump of dense shrubs. A vicious smile lit her face. It had taken him a long time to recover from that face blast – he always had been a bit of a wuss when it came to pain.

Looking through the bushes and the fence to see if he was coming, Elle scanned her backyard and home. Oh God, their home! She could clearly see smoke rising from several broken windows. Dull, numbing pain crept into her heart. The house that Gabriel had bought her…the only place she had ever really been able to call home, destroyed. It wasn't _fair_.

Emotional pain was not something that Elle liked to dwell on however, during any occasion, and with Adam still on the loose, she absolutely needed to push it away. There would be time later to mourn the loss. Biting the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood, she grimly reminded herself that she still had a deranged ex-boyfriend to deal with.

She hadn't seen Adam in close to five years. Their last fight had been disastrous and he had left soon after, severing all ties with the company and disappearing without a trace - or so her father had told her (she wouldn't be surprised if Bob had just been keeping all news of Adam under wraps). It was hard to even remember now what that fight had been about but it had seemed that their entire relationship was always one fight after another. They had dated back when she was still young and hot headed and enjoyed using her powers in harmful and sadistic ways. Admittedly, she probably had only been with him in the first place because he had been the only man who she could actually date without accidentally killing. It didn't hurt that he had let her indulge in zapping him on occasion - he had been a bit of a closet masochist back then. They had been quite the pair at the time.

Now, however, things were different - _she _was different. There was no way she was letting him waltz back into her life and destroy everything she had worked so hard to build. She was happy now. She had a life and a family that didn't include him. And if she needed to make him disappear again in order to make sure things stayed the way they were, then so be it. She wasn't sure how he had picked up new powers since the last time they met but new powers or not, he was going to get his skinny British ass beat if he tried anything with her. To hell with the old Company truce! Adam was going to pay dearly for wrecking her home but first, she needed more information before she could go blindly charging after him.

Reaching for her side clip and encountering nothing but air, she swore silently to herself – she had left her cell phone and car keys in the house. As she silently debated whether or not to break into her neighbor's home and call Primatech for backup or make a break for it, she heard the squealing of tires and a crash sound from the front of the house. _What the hell, now!? _Elle craned her neck but her view of the front of the house was limited due to the wooden fence. Had Adam brought backup? If so, they were being exceptionally noisy. It certainly wasn't the fire department - there were no sirens.

Turning her head back around, she saw a glimmer of Adam emerging from the back of the house. He looked...determined. His face and clothes were still smudged with black soot and it looked like some of his hair was still missing. From this angle, it looked a little like he was going bald. She smirked.

Before he could start down the path after her, something seemed to catch his attention and he cocked his head to the side as if listening. She couldn't get a clear look at his face anymore but she saw him head back inside.

Well, that was certainly interesting. She waited for a moment on aching knees to see if he would come back out but he didn't. Instead, Elle listened in blank astonishment as the sounds of muffled shouting and fighting broke out in the house.

_Hell no am I sticking around to find out what __**that**_ _is all about. _Adam was obviously occupied. It was time to leave.

Getting up and dusting herself off, Elle made a low dash to the front of the house. Screw the keys - she could always hotwire the car if she needed to. Going past the fence and through the neighbor's yard, she breathed in relief when no one attempted to stop her. Her relief ended as soon as she rounded the corner.

Gabriel's car was embedded in the garage. Elle stumbled to a stop. Gabriel's car was embedded in the garage...and Gabriel was not in it. A muffled concussion rent the air and the house and grounds shook. Elle stumbled before regaining her balance. Her pale face turned towards the house in sudden panic.

Taking off, Elle flat out ran across the driveway. Bursting through the broken door, she first noticed that the house was alternately covered in scorch marks and melting icicles. The stairs before her were collapsed and the library under it was torn down with books and glass strewn everywhere. She could see clear through to the dining room on her left but to her right, broken furniture was littered throughout the living room, making access to her office and the rooms beyond it difficult. Nothing in the house seemed like it had been left untouched and the house stank of burnt flesh and smoke and fresh blood. Dark red splatters adorned the walls, dotted amongst broken plaster and brick. Elle was not the type of girl who became queasy at the sight of blood but the thought that it could be Gabriel's was almost too much to bear. For a moment, she felt sick to her stomach.

Had Adam done all this? It didn't seem possible. Suddenly, it didn't matter anymore to Elle whether or not Adam found her.

"Gabriel!" she shouted, plunging into the wreckage of the living room, pushing past the couch and broken electronics. Her eyes swam with tears from the lingering smoke but she blinked them away rapidly.

"_Gabriel!_"

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Gabriel's hopes that Elle would not be at home were dashed as he ran past her neatly parked convertible on their long driveway. Before he even reached the front door, he knew something was terribly wrong. The large bay windows at the front of the house were shattered and there were copious amounts of black smoke pouring out. Bursting through the door, he was confronted with a wall of flames in the living room. The world slowed and white hot rage like he had never felt before poured through him, numbing his entire body and bringing his vision into sharp focus.

Adam was a dead man!

Breathing in sharply, Sylar exercised tight control over himself and pushed his rage down to a manageable level. He needed to focus.

He needed to find Elle as quickly as possible. He started by using his cryokinesis to snuff out the flames with a frigid blast of ice. At this point, keeping his powers a secret from her was second to saving her life. Propelling himself over the damaged furniture, he run through the library, quickly checking Elle's office on his way past to their game room and the secondary set of stairs at the back of the house. Making his way swiftly up, he carefully checked each room, his worry mounting with each empty chamber he passed.

She wasn't there. Had she managed to escape Adam? He refused to even think that Adam had already been there...with Elle...and left. Leaving the last room on the floor, he turned back to the empty hallway to go down the main stairs that led to the front of the house.

But the hallway was empty no more.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite mass murderer," Adam smiled at him from the end of the landing. He was leaning against the railing that ran parallel to the top of the stairs, blocking them from view. He was casually flipping through a photo album he had picked up somewhere in the house. Sylar recognized it as the one Elle left under the coffee table, the one that had pictures of the vacation they had taken last December. Pushing down his immediate urge to gut Adam like the pig he was, Syler told himself he needed Adam alive to tell him where Elle was first. That was the only thing that mattered.

"Well look at this...is this you?" Adam asked in amusement, his eyes on the album. "All trussed up and playing house like your friendly neighborhood bloke? Oh, that's jolly good! Who would have thought that _Sylar_, world famous killer, would ever lose his head over a _girl_. But I must say," he mussed thoughtfully, "she really is one attractive female...or was, in any case." Adam drew his eyes up to look at Sylar with a vicious smile on his face.

Sylar saw red.

Faster than he could blink, Sylar had Adam in a death grip. Boasting his speed with his telekinesis, he launched himself down the hall at Adam as a vicious snarl erupting from his bared teeth, wrapping his hands around Adam's throat with enough force and momentum to kill a normal person. They smashed into the side table and mirror at the other end of the hall and both went down in a heap of broken wood, glass and plaster. At the moment of impact, Adam's throat caved with a meaty snap and a gush of blood poured forth in a frothy spurt from his mouth. Before he could even heal, Sylar drew his fists back and punched him repeatedly in face, his hands glowing with radiation and melting off the parts of Adam's skin it came into contact with. Underneath the blood and torn flesh, Sylar could see Adam healing almost as quickly as he was dying. He picked him up by his collar and threw him up against the wall, encasing his body from the neck down with a thick layer of ice, his hands still wrapped so tightly around his neck that all the veins on Adam's face and neck stood out. The reckless laugh that still managed to ring out of Adam's throat only served to fuel his anger.

"Oh, come on then, _Gabriel_. Is that all you've got?"

"_Where is she?_" With increasing force, Sylar used his weight and own blunt strength to slowly break the bones in Adam's face, knowing that even with his healing abilities, the capacity to feel pain still remained. Somehow, Adam still managed to smile grotesquely through his broken and bleeding face.

"Why do you even care?" he managed to ask. "Do you actually think you're in love with her? Do you think that someone like _you _could ever really know what real love is? Look at yourself – _you're an animal!_"

"You have no _idea _what I am. Now tell me where she is or I will _break every bone in your body_," Sylar seethed, using his telekinesis to ruthlessly punctuate every word with the shattering of one of Adam's bones encased in the ice. Adam's words had hit their mark, bringing into focus the one fear Gabriel had been haunted by ever since he had first clapped eyes on Elle Knight.

"What's the matter, _Gabriel_? Did I hit a nerve?" Adam snarled in hatred, pale and shaking with pain and suppressed fury.

And then the ice broke, erupting outward from him forcefully, sending Sylar across the hall and through the solid wooden door of the guest bedroom.

Adam went to stand in the doorway, looking shredded and half frozen but invigorated. He stared down with contempt at Sylar's groggy, wood embedded form. "You're disgusting! If she knew what you really are, she'd turn sick at the sight of you." As Sylar painfully reached to dislodge the largest spike embedded deep in his back, Adam rotated his neck to loosen his muscles and pushed his shoulders back, an ice cold expression on his face. His eyes glowed with deep seated hatred.

"My turn."

Pulling Sylar up by his head, Adam tossed him up like a rag doll and then grabbed his legs while he was still in mid-air, pulling down with all of his considerable new strength and slamming Sylar forcefully down onto the floor, breaking the floorboards and driving pieces of broken wood even deeper into his body. He did this over and over again amidst Sylar's screams of pain until finally the floor boards gave way and they both crashed through to the library underneath, grappling with each other where they landed. Sylar forced Adam's form up away from him into one of the bookcases and then formed sharp icicles as thick as his arm and sent them flying with deadly speed at him. Adam blocked all of them with his force field and then used it to push Sylar through the wall into the kitchen, the force of his projection rippling away from him in a circular wave of energy and setting the house to shuddering with it's strength. Books flew away from their shelves and from the other rooms, he could hear the echo of tumbling furniture and the moan of shuddering foundations.

Stepping over the pile of ruined books, Adam emerged from the break in the library wall to see that the kitchen was empty but quickly filling with smoke and fire. He stepped outside cautiously to track Sylar when he heard her.

"_Gabriel!_" Elle's agonized voice sounded from the other side of the house.

Adam sworn violently under his breath. He turned to slink as quickly and quietly through the dining room as he could, following the sounds of Elle's increasingly frantic calls.

______

Gabriel paused in his path around the right side of house to circumvent Adam when he heard Elle's calls. Without thinking, he doubled back quickly, bursting though the French doors in her office to see her struggling past their broken living room. At the first sight of her, whole and unharmed, something inside him broke. He felt weak with relief.

Adam was a lying bastard. Figures.

"_Elle!_"

Her head snapped up and her clear blue eyes met his before her eyes drew down his body. Her face crumbled and a choked whimper escaped her and he realized too late that he was covered in blood and gore and looked like he had been through a wood chipper. Before she could speak, he held up his hands and headed her off.

"Elle, it's not mine. I'm fine but we need to leave here, _now_." He saw a myriad of emotions pass through her face at his words. She launched herself at him and he caught her deftly while her hands frantically ran over his face and body, checking for injury.

"Gabriel, you're – you're alright -"

He couldn't help but smile at her adorably confused face when she found none. He cupped her face in his hands and drew her gaze up to him, allowing himself one hard, long kiss as she clung to him tightly before pulling away.

"We need to leave," they both said as they broke apart. They looked at each other in surprise for a moment and then together spoke again.

"Right! Stay behind me." "Stay close behind me, Elle."

She rolled her eyes at him.

"This isn't the time to get all Rambo on me, Gabe!"

"Don't argue with me, Elle!"

"Well, if it isn't the happy couple." Adam's cheerful voice floated to them from where he stood past the stairwell. His hands were jauntily placed on his hips and although his hair and clothing were mangled, he looked completely refreshed and relaxed. He wore a smug smile on his face that Elle knew well. It was a smile that spelled trouble.

She tried to step in front of Gabriel at the same time that he pushed her decisively behind him. Trying to move around him proved impossible. He was like a rock all of a sudden!

"Gabriel, no! You don't understand – you need to leave right now. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

"Elle, listen to me," he said to her quietly. "This man is dangerous. You need to get out. _Now_." He needed to make sure she was gone before he took care of things with Adam.

Adam chuckled. "Oh, now this _is _funny. You," he pointed at Elle, "are trying to protect _him_. And he obviously doesn't know anything about you, at all. Does he, _love_?"

Elle gave him the glare of death and mouthed '_you're dead_' as Gabriel discreetly glanced at her in bewildered agitation. "Do you _know _this person?"

"...unfortunately, yes. We have some unfinished business."

"What _business_?"

"Oh now don't get mad at her, Gabriel. After all, you don't want to get too angry. You might be liable to..._explode_. And I don't think our lovely girl here would enjoy that much. Would you darling?" Adam ribbed.

"Don't talk to her," Gabriel growled.

"I'll talk to her anytime I please. After all," Adam gave him a nasty smile before he dropped his bomb. "She was in love with me long before she ever knew you were a smear on the planet."

"You lying sack of shit! I was never in love with you!" Elle screamed at the same time Gabriel yelled, "I will end your life old man!"

"Aww laddie," Adam cocked his head to the side, "not if I end you first." And at that, Adam raised his hands. They were glowing with an eerie blue haze.

And then all hell broke loose.

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_AN: Covers face. Eep! Hope you guys liked it. _


	10. Chapter 10

_AN: Last time on M&M Gray, Adam was getting ready to blow Gabriel and Elle to kingdom come…or was he?_

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**Chapter 10**

"Say goodbye to your wife, Sylar." Adam smiled insidiously right as he sent a blue pulse of energy towards the fuming couple.

Grabbing Elle and tucking her tightly in his arms, Gabriel jumped out of the way, rolling them across the littered living room floor. In his arms, Elle grunted at the impact of hitting the floor. The rest of her words were muffled by the boom of Adam's power demolishing their fireplace as it narrowly missed them. They came to a stop with Gabriel on top and Elle firmly tucked underneath him. Reacting without a thought, Gabriel raised the arm that was not shielding her head to telekinetically throw Adam across the room.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Elle's hand shoot out towards Adam at the same time.

As Adam went sailing through the air to impact heavily against the splintered door frame, an arc of crackling blue electricity raced from Elle's hand to engulf his body. Gabriel watched as he landed with a sickening smack against the broken wood and then fell forward to lay still in a sizzling pile of scorched human flesh. From the back of Adam's head, a sliver of wood protruded. For a moment there was nothing but deathly quiet as Gabriel's brain slowly processed what he had just seen. Underneath him, he felt Elle go utterly still. And then, unconsciously, the hand that had been cushioning her head from the broken glass on the ground tightened roughly and a strangled noise escaped her. His eyes snapped to hers.

The look on her face formed a hollow pit in the bottom of his stomach. Her eyes were glazed with terror and he realized then that his grip on her was bruisingly tight and that ice was forming on her hair and face. Before he could speak, she bucked him off of her roughly and a snap of blue light blinded him as his body spasmed, agony ripping through him.

She had electrocuted him.

He collapsed with his face on the ground as his skin slowly knit itself back together. Elle sobbed out roughly from the ground as she watched with her back pressed against the fireplace. He panted, not bothering to lift himself.

She had _electrocuted _him.

He heard the crunch of glass as she slowly got up and still he lay where he was. Adam was completely forgotten.

_She had electrocuted him_.

"Sylar," she choked at him, her voice full of anger and pain and _knowing_. It was that knowing that woke him from his stupor. The understanding of everything that that name represented that finally brought everything sharply into focus.

He had been sleeping with the enemy.

Slowly, he pushed himself up from the ground, swallowing the metallic blood that had erupted in his mouth from her attack. He savored the taste, pushing his tongue up against the roof of his mouth. Blood. His blood. She had _hurt _him. His smoldering eyes finally lifted to meet hers. She was trembling. Her face was ashen but her wide eyes were bone dry and utterly unreadable. The stared at one another as the ghost of her electricity tingled on his skin. There was only one electrogenicist in the Pinehearst database, he knew.

"Bishop," he mouthed, the word barely passing his lips but she heard and flinched as if shot. A gasping sob tore from her throat and her hands automatically came up as if to defend herself - as if he would hurt her. And he knew. _She _would hurt him if she needed to. _She _would kill him. This was how it was going to be. The realization that she viewed him as her enemy was like a sucker punch to his gut. She had been everything to him. And he was nothing to her. Stinging anger prickled behind his eyes, seeping down through his body like a flaming wave of lava.

She had played him for a fool.

With a thought, he had her pinned to the wall, her hands pushed up uselessly next to her head.

"Gabriel!" she cried out and the word fell on him like a blow. How dare she use that name? She had no right!

"Let's not pretend anymore, _Agent Bishop_!" he sneered. He flicked his wrist, sending all the furniture between them skittering away so that a path was cleared to her. "That's not my name anymore and you know it." She shook her head dully in denial at him, her head sagging so that her bangs came down to cover her eyes.

"No, Gabriel…" she said weakly. His lip curled. Did she really think that using that name would have any effect on him now? He had clearly married the actress of the century. Who knew how many lies she had had to feed him over the years to cover her tracks. And he had believed them all! He had eaten them up like a fool! He had been a fool for her tricks, for her lies.

There was a stinging pressure building behind his eyes at the sight of her and he ruthlessly forced it away. He would cut her out of his life now even if it meant one or both of them had to die. Hoisted against the wall, her hands flickered with a web of crackling blue sparks, inciting him further. He walked towards her.

"Do you think you can kill me, Elle? Your power is nothing next to mine. I could break you into pieces right now and there is nothing you could do to me. I can't die!" _But I would have. For you, I would have._

She looked up at him, some of the fight coming back into her eyes. "You're wrong. There's plenty I could do to you." He was right in front of her now, looking down into her heated eyes and admiring how the blue crackle of her power lit up her face. God, she was beautiful. Still as beautiful as the day they met he realized with an ache. But she had one flaw. She lied. She was his beautiful lie.

"Show me," he whispered and brought his hands up to thread through hers. Her heaving chest was nearly touching his and her eyes widened and then narrowed. He braced himself, expecting the agony of being charred to begin at any moment. _Show me_, he told her silently. _Do it. I'll give you this one chance to kill me._

___

The moment that Elle saw Adam's battered body fly through the air, her eyes had been inexplicably drawn to Gabriel's wrist – his outstretched left wrist, where a polished silver watch face glimmered at her mockingly. There, written clear as day…Sylar.

Oh, _god_.

They stayed unmoving for a moment, watching Adam slowly bleed onto their polished wood floor. And then Gabriel's hand tightened roughly on her head. It had hurt but she had grit her teeth and taken it. It wasn't until she felt him slowly begin to freeze her that she had panicked and blasted him off of her.

It was like a nightmare. He had nearly fucking killed her! And for a terrifying moment, she thought that _she _had killed _him _until she saw his skin knit itself back together. It was really him. The telekinesis, the cryokinesis, the god damn healing.

"Sylar…" she uttered. _Sylar…why did you have to be Sylar?_

It was un-fucking-believable.

Looking into his eyes, she no longer saw the man that she knew. No longer saw the man that not ten minutes ago had been trying to save her life. Had kissed her. Had made slow love to her the night before. _Was everything between us meaningless? You're trying to provoke me._

And now…

"Show me," he commanded, his face dark with anger but his eyes full of pain, full of Gabriel's pain.

And she couldn't. Not like that. So instead, she closed her fingers around his.

"No," she breathed, pleading with her eyes.

"Show me what you're made of," he ground out, squeezing her fingers until they were numb. She shook her head at him slowly, never losing eye contact. "If you don't," he whispered, "you'll die."

She felt it then, that slow agonizing prickle of ice cold needles seeping into her skin. It began at her hands and slowly moved down her wrists and arms. He was encasing her in ice, the son of a bitch and it _hurt_. It was slow and it was deliberate and she felt a little bit of herself die inside at the knowledge that he could hurt her so easily. As the ice began to encase her, she knew that if she didn't act now, her hands would soon be too frozen to save her. Slowly, without her permission, silent tears slipped down her face.

"Did you love me?" she asked numbly. At her question, his face took on a horribly pained, wounded look. He knew what she was going to ask. She was forever asking the same things. He sagged onto her, his forehead coming to rest on her forehead.

"_Yes_," he whispered.

"How much?" she asked quietly back.

"Too much," he answered quietly, regretfully. "I loved you too much."

Loved. Not love. She hadn't thought hearing him say that could hurt so much but it did. It was a different kind of pain than she was used to. If he loved her as much as she did him, he would never be able to say those words to her, do this to her.

And then he was speaking again but she couldn't hear anything past the roaring in her ears. It was over. Yesterday, she had been about to throw away her life at the Company so that they could have a real life together…and now it was over. They were over - because he was choosing it to be over.

Slowly, a numbing white rage began to build inside of her.

Did he really think he could just love her and kill her and walk away? Maybe he could do that to the woman he knew as Elle Gray…but there was no fucking way he would ever do that to Elle Bishop. She focused on the cold of her body and the sharp, sharp pain of the ice penetrating her skin.

She would show him what real pain was.

He was still leaning against her heavily, his eyes closed, and that's why he never saw the crackling rage in her eyes before she filled him with as much raw electricity as she could.

"ELLLLLLLEEEE!!!!" Sylar's harsh scream filled the air and she was sure the neighbors could hear him from miles away - not that she would never be coming back here again, she decided. He was thrown back away from her and landed across the room where he lay dead and smoking. She watched as his skin slowly mended itself, going from black to red to pink to pale tan. Her father had been right. Men were bad news - they only hurt you in the end. Unfortunately for Sylar, she could hurt right back. A tiny smirk emerged on her lips as his head turned towards her in groggy astonishment.

"Love you too, baby," she smiled mockingly at him. And then she blasted him again and again and again.

And again.

If he thought he was leaving her, he could very well do it in a body bag.

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_AN: Bet you thought I was never going to update, hmm? Well, I'm slmost done with the next chapter, too! I will try to post it before I leave for Japan for two weeks tomorrow! No promises though. :)  
_


	11. Chapter 11

_AN: I love you guys! Soooo...I feel like something is missing in this chapter. There is a step that is missing...but I can't figure out what it is. And you've waited long enough. So please enjoy and let me know what you think!_

_Special thanks to Lamies for all her great input!_

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**Chapter 11**

Sylar felt Elle blast him with her full power for what seemed like hours to his body although the slow ticking in his head assured him that not more than five minutes had passed. When his body clawed its way back to life again for the tenth time, to his relief he sensed her tiring. He didn't know how long even _his_ body could make new tissue out of nothing. Snapping his hand out quickly, he pushed with his telekinesis and she went flying back against the crumbled fireplace where she bounced once and lay coughing for a moment. He closed his hand tightly and pulled it back, the vein in his throat beating madly. Using his telekinesis had been instinctive…but so had the concern that had immediately welled up for her afterward. He couldn't deny the sharp fear that had leapt up in him at the sound of her thin body landing harshly on broken masonry. That same hand that had defended him…had reached for her. His eyes narrowed. Gingerly, he pushed himself up, reminding himself again that he needed to cut her out of his mind, his heart. When he reached his full height, his smoldering eyes slowly scanned her body in a thorough, hungry manner before settling on her face. Damn but that had hurt. He had to give it to her, that attack had been more than he expected. She had even managed to burn almost all of his clothing off. It had been a long time since someone had hurt him that badly...given him any sort of challenge. He felt new energy course throughout his newly reconstructed cells. She had shown her true colors after all and now he would show his. He smirked at her.

"Is that all you've got?"

An deadly look spread across her face until it was replaced by an antagonistic smile as she pushed her long hair back from her face. "Why? You having a hard time keeping up?"

"Hardly. I think you know I could go all day."

She laughed mockingly and despite the grime and sweat she was covered in, he couldn't help but notice how incredibly gorgeous she still managed to look. Her tight little shirt and skirt seemed to almost be strategically shredded.

"Don't kid yourself, baby." She smiled wickedly, heartstopingly at him for a moment and it was like he was looking at her for the first time. His Elle, the deadly Agent Bishop. God but she looked amazing like this - like some kind of amazon warrior. But she had betrayed him in the worst way. He shouldn't be feeling anything anymore for her but...he almost felt like....

And then in a blink, she was gone.

She had sprung to her feet and hurled herself down the passage that led to the back of the house. After only a seconds hesitation, he followed on her tail but she was too far ahead of him for him to see her. Rounding a corner quickly, he felt a sharp pain on the back of his head. He fell on his face and a heavy silver picture frame landed next to him. She had nailed him with their wedding photo! As he groaned and shook his head, out of the corner of his eye he saw her high heels approach and heard a loud crackle of static as a beautiful arc of electric blue fire sped towards him. The jolt hit him square in the back and pain quickly spread throughout his body, searing his lungs as he breathed in to scream.

"_Arrghh!_" He flung out with his mind to grab her, force her away but she was gone. She was off again running back the other way into her office and he stumbled angrily after her, tasting blood again. He grasped at his anger, holding on to it as he chased her through hallways lined with pictures of another life, the nauseating smell of his own baked flesh still in his nostrils.

As he neared the open door to her office, he slowed and then tore the walls off with his telekinesis so that he could see the room in its entirely, sensing her in the quiet of the air. A tiny smile crept onto his face. She wasn't going to get the jump on him again but he had to admire that last little stunt of hers.

As the drywall came flying off, Elle emerged from behind her long mahogany desk wielding a slender black gun that he had never seen before. She fired at him twice. He easily deflected both the shots, more angry than ever. Those shots had been aimed straight at his head! Easily pulling the gun telekinetically from her, he snapped it into his hand from the air, admiring it's deadly lines and flipping it around in his hands. Turning a gun on its owner was one of his favorite tricks - there was something so absolutely poetic and cruel about it.

"Didn't you do your homework, Elle?" he asked her mildly, smugly, as if she hadn't just barbecued him to the point of near death minutes earlier. "Stopping bullets is my specialty."

"I know. I was counting on it." It was then that he noticed the tiny device in her other hand. She pressed it and the gun exploded in his hands as she dove under the desk. Bullets and metal fragments embedded themselves painfully into his body. _Fuck!_ Before he could pick himself up she was standing over him again.

"This is for freezing me!" she screamed. She kicked him in the ribs, hard. He grunted. Her shoes were sharp! "And that's for freezing me again!" She tried to kick him again but he grabbed her by her ankle and pulled roughly. She tumbled down next to him and he quickly climbed on top of her, pressing his naked, bleeding chest down onto her and trying to pin her down as the shrapnel was slowly squeezed from his body and his skin healed itself over. She was squirming crazily and all of her thrashing was beginning to make him strangely excited. He mentally shrugged. He was still a man after all.

"Get off of me!"

"I thought you liked being bottom, _darling_."

"As if you ever knew what I liked," she bit back.

Gabriel's eyes narrowed heatedly. She was lying! She was lying of course, but it still stung. And god but he really wanted to prove her wrong. She smiled smugly at him, knowing her verbal jab had hit its mark. He grappled with her, finally pulling her hands up above her head with his hands and pushing her down with his weight even though they both knew he could easily hold her down with nothing more than a thought. They were pressed together from chest to ankle and he was acutely aware of the quick rise and fall of her chest and the warm heat of her body.

"We both know that's a lie, honey. Nobody is _that _good an actress." He stifled a groan at her attempts to buck him off. He could already feel himself hardening unexpectedly. "But if you want me to prove it, I suggest you keep doing that," he said casually, knowing it would irritate her but despite everything, half hoping that she would.

She stiffened, feeling him against her, and her face flushed. And then all of a sudden her body changed its wild, flailing movements to a more sinuous, languid and purposeful writhing. He swallowed. "Want to know what I'd _really _like to do, baby?" she whispered. Against his will, he watched her lick her lips slowly.

And then she kneed him in the groin.

"Argh!!" he gasped, curling up a bit as she pushed him off of her. "Ahhh...Jesus, Elle!" Healing be damned, that still hurt like a bitch!

"Not like you need them! You are never touching me again, you miserable lying fuck!" He blinked up at her in pained surprise. Why was it that after finding out about her identity, he was more surprised at her foul-mouthed language? Without waiting for him to recover, she pressed her hands to his chest and shocked him again. Instead of taking it this time though, he held onto her wrists as she poured energy into him, rolling himself on top of her again and holding them together so that her hands were trapped between them. Her electricity rolled through them both and she screamed. He let up immediately. She was a treacherous, lying she-devil but...it still made his hair stand on end to hear her cry out like that. Another weakness that he would need to stub out.

"I hate you!" she seethed, struggling against him as she tried to shock him again. "I hate you!" She somehow managed to loosen one of her hands and clawed him across the face. He stared down at her as a splash of blood oozed out to land on her cheek before the wound closed smoothly. Inexplicably, tears welled in her eyes as she watched. His heart was pounding to a wild rhythm in his chest as he watched the anger slowly drain out of her at the warm, familiar weight of his body on hers.

"How could you _do _this to me?!" Unwanted tears pooled in her eyes, sparkling and snapping as they trickled onto her electrified skin. He felt his heart clench even as he called himself six kinds of fool. He leaned over her, unable and unwilling to move, his body unusually exhausted. His throat was suddenly thick.

"Elle, I…"

"How could you do this to me?" She asked again, sadly this time. She looked so young at that moment. Almost like a child really, with her big blue eyes and smooth skin and soft pink lips. He leaned down onto her, unthinkingly reaching out to stroke her beautiful, battered face. It was a face that he had watched so many times in the dark of the night as a tiny, unacknowledged dream of a child with her smile and his eyes grew in the shelter of his heart. She was supposed to be his humanity, his light in the dark. But she was just as dark, just as damaged as he was. He should hate her for it. _You do hate her_, he told himself. _She's a liar. She never loved you. _

"You lied to me," he said hollowly, sweat dripping down from the tip of his hair to splash noiselessly into the carpet beside her head. His words sounded meaningless and hypocritical, even to him.

"I lied to you," Elle repeated bitterly. Her eyes stared up accusingly at him from inches away. "Of course. And you've always been so honest with me."

"That was -"

"_Different?_"

He inhaled, stung. "To protect you!" They stared at each other for a moment, the feeling behind his words heavy and laden with meaning between them. Her breathing was labored and her chest was heaving like she had just run a mile. He could feel the puff of her exhalations on his neck. "I can't trust you."

"You are _choosing _not to trust me. Just like you are choosing to fight me. Just like you've chosen to no longer love me," she raged at him.

_I still love you._

"You think I lied to you. I did. We _both _did. But I never betrayed you. You've done that to yourself."

"That's not true."

"Stop _lying _to yourself," she ground out.

"Stop trying to get inside my head. You can't."

She looked at him steadily. "I'm already inside you. It doesn't matter what you say. You know it's true."

"No, what I know is that _I don't want you anymore_," he said deliberately, cruelly and watched as his pain was reflected back in her eyes. "I don't need you and I don't want you. It's been fun, Elle, really - playing house like this. Even more fun now that everything's out in the open. I loved having a stupid blond bimbo to come home to every night to spread her legs for me and make me dinner after a long day of killing her friends and co-workers without her ever knowing it." She went still. They stared at each other for a long moment as he silently urged her to fight back, swallowing the bile rising in the back of his throat as he ruthlessly pushed away the urge to take back his words. Her wide eyes stared at him unblinkingly as she trembled. _Say it_, he silently pleaded. _There's nothing left to lose. Say what you really think of me. Say that I mean nothing to you_. **_Say it._**

"You can't kill me," she finally whispered in understanding.

"Don't kid yourself," he replied quietly, harshly.

"You can't kill me unless I make you kill me," she continued wonderingly as if he'd never spoken. "You want me to give you a reason. You _want _me to fight you to make it easier."

"_No._"

"You threatened me, but you've been holding back. You've been holding back this whole time. You could have killed me, or stopped me, so many times. You never did."

He stared at her, speechless.

"You're such an idiot," she said almost fondly.

"And you are a lying bitch," he said automatically, hollowly.

"Yes," she mouthed, her eyes glittering at him. "But I'm _your _lying bitch." He inhaled sharply, his eyes wide. Looking at her now, the dark truth of her words sank into him. He felt numb. He couldn't kill her. Even knowing what she was…God, it only made him want her even more. As sick as it was, as much as she had betrayed him…he didn't think he could ever stop wanting her. She was simply lying there now, staring into his eyes, her conviction giving her strength and he still couldn't do anything to her. He could feel himself weakening in the face of her submission. She was giving him the opportunity to make good on his threats…and he couldn't. A tremor ran through his body.

"I'm still yours," she whispered and he read the truth in her eyes. A strangled noise escaped his throat. And then his hands were all over her, cupping her, stroking her, holding her, crushing her to him. She felt so delicate and broken in his hands as she laid there limply, tears trickling out of her eyes, dark truths pouring out of her lovely, lying mouth. He felt her nails dig into his bare back and he kissed her then to stop her from saying anything more. He felt her melt at his savage, open mouth kiss.

"Gabriel!" she gasped against him and he buried his face in her neck, his hands tangled in her hair and the back of her shirt. The feeling behind that name on her lips...it was too much.

"Don't. Don't_ lie _to me," he commanded roughly, clutching her tight. It must have hurt but instead of struggling, she smoothed his hair down the nape of his neck gently and wrapped her arms around him.

"Not everything was a lie." He heard the hitch in her voice, the sincerity, and he swallowed thickly, wanting to believe her so very badly. Even knowing everything, he still couldn't help it. He ached at the thought of letting go of her. She felt so small in his arms. She had never felt more vulnerable to him than in this moment when he knew what he could do to her, what he had never even considered doing to her before but what he knew he would have done to Agent Bishop without a second thought. And he knew then that he _had _held back.

On his cheek, he felt the hot splash of her tear. He lifted his head in wonder to stare down at her silently pleading face, at those deep morning blue eyes so full of sorrow and longing. And he was lost.

Before he knew it, he was kissing her again - hot, heavy kisses that were full of hopelessness - and her mouth was opening under him and he could feel the wetness on her face and it was on his face, too. Her arms were around him and clutching him and he felt of surge of want tinged with despair well up in him. He gripped her harder. Suddenly, it didn't seem like anything else mattered except the rightness of her in his arms.

The carpet in her office was warm and plush and as he pushed up her skirt, she lifted her hips to help him, arching herself into him. He felt her hands slip down to untie what was left of his pants and quickly kicked the rest of his restraining garments off. He groaned at the feel of her quick little hands slipping down lower to grip him.

"_Elle,_" he pleaded, pressing up against her. _I love you._

He felt the gentle softness of her body and the warm encouraging circle of her arms tighten around him and felt as if he were standing at the edge of a precipice. One more word from her and he would plummet over the edge.

"Gabriel," she whispered, her voice full of love and acceptance despite everything.

And that was when he felt himself fall for her all over again.

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_AN: Bonus time! So as a special thank you for making it this far with me and as an apology for taking so long in between chapters, I've included the short crack scene below. It was supposed to occur immediately after Elle and Gabriel find out about each other. This is the first scene I wrote for this story and I was originally going to build the story around it but it ended up going in a **completely **different direction from what I first intended so this scene had to be scrapped. I always liked it, though. Hope you enjoy it. _

**Chapter 10 (Original)**

"I can't believe you're Bishop!"

"I can't believe you're _Sylar_."

"How the hell did you keep this from me?"

Elle smirked. "It wasn't easy."

"You don't really work at a bakery, do you?"

"Gah, no way!"

"So all those pies you brought home were, what, made by someone else?" he asked accusingly. At Elle's guilty nod, Gabriel blew up. "You told me those were made with love! With _love_! I can't believe this!"

"You're mad about baked goods? I just saw you kill someone!"

"You would have died if I hadn't killed him. And you're one to talk _Bishop_. I've read your file. You have a list of kills a mile long." They glared at each other. Gabriel sighed.

"Is it true what you can do?" he asked.

"Depends. What does your file say?"

"It hypothesizes that you'd the strongest electrogenicist on record."

Elle smiled smugly. "Well, I don't think there are any others like me on record but…" she shrugged coyly, clearly indicating that yes, her powers were indeed, bad ass.

"I saw what you can do. It's incredible," he breathed. He was hovering over her and Elle recognized the smoldering look in his eyes. It was almost the same look he gave her before he usually threw her in bed and locked the door for a day of hanky panky, but not quite.

"Your power, Elle…it's amazing. Like nothing I've ever seen before…" he continued. She uneasily noticed his eyes go slightly wild around the edges and his breathing deepen.

"Gabriel, what are you…"

"Shh, baby…" He raised his hand, two of his fingers outstretched and then –

"OW! What the hell was that for?!"

She had bitch slapped him as hard as she could.

"You were going to 'Sylarize' me!"

"I was not!"

"Don't you lie to me, Gabriel Gray!"

"…alright, maybe just a little –"

"_Just a little…!_"

"- but I would have like, _totally _healed you."

"You can do that?" she said in surprise before the scowl returned to her face. "You know what - never mind. That's not the point," she ground out. "Gabriel, I swear to god, it you ever cut me open I am filing for divorce!"

"You always say that, babe."

She poked him hard in the chest. "This isn't like when you leave the toilet seat up or eat the last fudgesicle, this time I mean it."

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_AN: I know, I know - totally NOT how this story ended up but...what are you gonna do, right?_


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